Shrader: Girl Scout camping under an assumed name

By Jennifer Shrader / Managing Editor

Published: Thursday, March 6, 2014 at 07:39 PM.

In elementary school, I was a Brownie, one of the “lower tier” of Girl Scout organizations. A few of my classmate’s mothers were brave or crazy enough to take on the task of being group leaders for about a dozen of us, and a church fellowship hall was found to hold the meetings.

I still have my uniform and sash from that time, with the few badges I earned. I have no idea what any of them were for, but I’m sure the whole thing almost qualifies as a collector’s item at this point.

I remember we made a lot of crafts. I made a tiny doll-sized rocking chair out of clothespins that was probably as close to a work of art as you can get to when you’re only 9.

I remember we took a “field trip” to a fellow Brownie’s farm to see all the animals.

A box was delivered to The Free Press offices Wednesday, and it wasn’t fuzzy pajamas from my second mother (although as cold at it has been, I wouldn’t have turned those away).

It was Girl Scout cookies.

Peanut butter patties, to be exact, my favorite.

Sadly, it seems as soon as they got here they were gone ... but boy, were they good while they lasted.

I’ve only gotten reacquainted with Girl Scout cookies in the last several years, after what I figure was a self-imposed hiatus. It also didn’t help that friends of mine now have children of Girl Scout age who literally stand on street corners every year about this time hawking their goods like little vest-clad pushers.

Like many things, I have a complicated relationship with the Girl Scouts.

In elementary school, I was a Brownie, one of the “lower tier” of Girl Scout organizations. A few of my classmate’s mothers were brave or crazy enough to take on the task of being group leaders for about a dozen of us, and a church fellowship hall was found to hold the meetings.

I still have my uniform and sash from that time, with the few badges I earned. I have no idea what any of them were for, but I’m sure the whole thing almost qualifies as a collector’s item at this point.

I remember we made a lot of crafts. I made a tiny doll-sized rocking chair out of clothespins that was probably as close to a work of art as you can get to when you’re only 9.

I remember we took a “field trip” to a fellow Brownie’s farm to see all the animals.

And then there were the cookie sales. Bless our hearts.

I happened to have a distinct advantage in the cookie-selling area. Between my dad’s contacts as a teacher and my mom’s contacts through her bowling league and other groups, our family knew a good number of people. I never had to stand on a street corner. I barely had to leave the house.

I worked that phone like a telemarketer whose rent was due.

Every year I sold the most cookies, which one year earned me three free weeks at the local Girl Scout day camp.

Unintentionally, I went to Girl Scout camp under an assumed name.

I’m not sure what was happening the year I was born, but there turned out to be four or five “Jennifer’s” in my little group of camp alone. On the first day, the counselors pulled us all aside.

“Do any of you have any nicknames?” they asked. “Because this is going to get ridiculous.”

That also happened to be around the time I decided I didn’t like my name. I told the counselors they could call me by my middle name instead, which is Jill.

So for three weeks, I was Jill. Everyone called me that. It’s on all my certificates, wherever they are. Jill this. Jill that. Other than falling in the lake a couple times, the camp was uneventful.

Until the last day when my mother showed up for the official parent program portion of the camp.

Everyone still called me Jill. Jill, come do this. Jill, help with this trash. Jill this. Jill that.

“Why are they calling her Jill?” my mother asked a counselor -- a counselor who was not in on the first-week name changing and thought that was my name.

“Well, that’s her name?” the confused counselor said. To my mother.

“No it’s not.”

“Y-y-yes it is?”

My mother didn’t speak to me for the whole drive home.

That was the end of my second identity and the end of my time in the Girl Scout organization. Our brave troop leader mothers decided they’d had enough and didn’t want to take us to the next step, being actual Girl Scouts.

So my sash of badges is pretty sparse.

But I still do like the cookies.

Jennifer Shrader is the managing editor of The Free Press; her column appears in this space every Friday. You can reach her at 252-559-1079 or at Jennifer.Shrader@Kinston.com. Follow her on Twitter at jenjshrader.